


I'm Having Fun (don't put me down)

by allegedly_writing, backwardstypos



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: ... - Freeform, 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack Treated Seriously, Early Season 2 Era, Implied Sexual Content, Jealousy, M/M, Michael is here of course there's body horror, Other, Pining, References to Sex, Stabbing, as well as regular fruit, fruit (derogatory), it's not so much crack as entirely based off a joke, jon getting his back blown out but it's behind uh. closed doors winkwonk, light body horror, light stabbing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:28:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27497194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allegedly_writing/pseuds/allegedly_writing, https://archiveofourown.org/users/backwardstypos/pseuds/backwardstypos
Summary: Michael has no business taking all hisboyfriend'scrush'sboss' attention, Martin has decided. I mean really, what does this eldritch abomination have that he doesn't?
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Michael | The Distortion/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 5
Kudos: 24





	I'm Having Fun (don't put me down)

**Author's Note:**

> This has been in the works for so goddamn long, I don't think either of us even listen to tMA regularly anymore. Oh well
> 
> That's how life be I guess!

Martin stares at himself in the mirror. Buttons the top two buttons of his one nice shirt. Unbuttons them. Buttons the second one but not the first. Stares some more. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knows he’s being ridiculous but well... 

  
_Two knocks on the door with a shaking hand before Martin opens it. Inside, Jon is standing behind his desk, looking for all the world like the papers scattered on its surface have run over his dog. He wonders if Jon likes dogs._

_“Ah, Jon,” Martin starts, but stops suddenly when Jon startles so bad his glasses slip off his head and land back on the tip of his nose. Jon pushes the glasses up and glares through them at where Martin is standing, tea clutched like a lifeline to his chest._

_“Yes, Martin?”_

_“I uh, brought you tea. No caffeine because it’s getting kind of late and I was thinking you would go home soon? To sleep.” He hands over the mug._

_Jon knocks it back in three long swallows, highlighting the scarred length of his throat. Martin’s mouth goes dry. He wishes he brought a second mug for himself; his hands tap nervously against each other in the space the mug left._

_“Thank you, Martin,” Jon hands back the mug, sitting down and going back to his paperwork, “I might be pulling an all-nighter tonight. If you don’t need anything else, I suggest you leave me to it.” A clear dismissal. Martin's brain panics for the half a second it takes for his mouth to open and say, “Actually…”_

_Jon glances up from where he’s attempting to unearth his laptop from what could very well be an entire box of old statements, “Yes?” he says._

_Martin scrambles to find something to say, “I was wondering if you’d be interested in uh. Talking about some things I found regarding… ‘Michael’.” This gets Jon’s attention fully, he puts down the handful of pages back into the pile and leans forward a little bit, in a way that unhelpfully reminds Martin of a sexy professor._

_“I mean, not tonight. I’m kind of you know,” Martin fake yawns, “exhausted. That bookstore case in Soho really gave me the run around today. But I’m free tomorrow night if you want to uh. Get drinks over it?” There’s no fucking way this will work Martin thinks, just before Jon shrugs and says,_

_“All right, I’ll see you tomorrow. Get some sleep, Martin.”_

  
This is really, really important for Martin, okay? A year and a half of pining culminated finally in drinks. Granted, work related drinks but still. Friday night drinks with Jon, maybe in a low lit booth, intimate and cozy. Which is precisely why he’s in the seldom used artefact storage bathroom, twenty after five, nitpicking himself to death; everything has to be _perfect_. He’s in his nicest shirt, except there was a problem with the breakroom copy machine so now there’s an ink stain the size of a small country on the left of it. 

Martin had begged to borrow Sasha’s nice leather jacket to cover it, except she’s just this side of smaller than him so it’s kind of tight in the shoulders. He’s hoping Jon doesn’t notice. 

Another minute or two of side eyeing himself, fiddling with the buttons more, attempting to slick back his hair a little with a handful of water, he’s ready. Maybe. Yes.

The walk from artefact storage to the archives is a poorly lit staircase and enough pros and cons of actually going through with this that Martin’s head is just short of spinning when he knocks once again on Jon’s door. There’s no answer, but there honestly, rarely is. He pushes the door open to find an empty office. 

There’s nothing out of place as far as Martin can tell, although honestly the whole office could use a good clean these days. The trapdoor is still closed and locked, and Jon’s jacket is still laid over the back of his chair. Jon could’ve just stepped out for a smoke, except the tape recorder is missing from his desk.

Martin starts to sweat, nervous as to where he went. He turns back to the hall, ready to go track down Tim and ask if he’s seen Jon in the past ten minutes when he sees a door across the hall that he hadn’t noticed on the way in. It’s yellow like an old bruise, and it doesn’t match the ostentatiously academic surroundings of the rest of the archives, as there’s an eye keyed into the paint, with a carved penis ejaculating directly next to it.

Martin has never seen this door before in his life, though it feels...familiar. Something seems to draw Martin into it, the longer he stares at the door handle. He stares, and stares, for what feels like forever, inching slowly towards it, when suddenly it turns and out spills Jon.

Jon, for his part, looks for all the world like a sexy horror movie survivor; wildeyed with knotted hair, the band usually keeping it up still lost in the waves that spill around his shoulders. The hair doesn’t hide the bite marks on his neck, though they all seem to have broken the skin so Martin’s first thought is worry, not jealousy. Jon’s shirt is a lesson in how distressed an item of clothing can get before it’s no longer clothing, but his modesty is saved by the white undershirt.

“Martin! You’re here! Where…?” Jon trails off, running a hand through his hair and glancing around past Martin, not seeming to take much in though. 

“We’re still in the archives. What happened? Where did that door lead,” Martin tears his eyes away from Jon and gestures to the wall, blank of door and penis and everything that lay behind. Jon looks back at Martin from where he was still looking around, and Martin notices his eyes are a little glazed.

“It, uh. You know about the creature Michael. It traps people in this never ending hallway,” Jon falls back against the wall where the door used to be, moving away from where he, in retrospect, was extremely close to Martin, “that door led to the halls. It appeared around five, and I, well. I had to see where it led, you know?” Martin did not know, but that meant, 

“You’ve only been gone twenty minutes.” He says, a little lost at this entire situation. He wondered, a little hysterically, if Jon would still be up for their uh. Date.

“Really?” Jon says, looking a little more alert than a moment ago. “That’s...weird. It certainly felt much longer.” He seems to be focusing on Martin’s shoulders, or whatever’s just past them. Martin tries to look out the corner of his eye, see if there’s anything there without taking his eyes off Jon. 

“Are you okay?” Martin asks, giving up and finally turning to look behind him for just a second. This seems to snap Jon out of whatever fugue was left; his shoulders straighten and he takes his weight off the wall. 

“I’m fine, Martin. You said I only lost twenty minutes, and I wasn’t even hurt,” Martin’s eyes stray back to the bloody bite marks, “so you don’t need to...to mother hen me, like you do.” This draws Martin up short.

“Mother hen? Jon, you’re bleeding! You look like you almost got eaten alive, you couldn’t stand up more than a minute ago, and you’ve been in some other dimension portal _thing_ for twenty minutes! We don’t know what Michael could want, or why it took you, maimed you, and then dumped you back out!”

“I know! I know what he wanted, he-it, explained what it was after,” 

“You _talked_ to it?!”

“Well, sort of. I’m not in any danger, at least not right now. And not from it. I know that much.” Jon says, pushing past Martin. “Like I said, I don’t need you looking after me right now, okay? I need to...review the tape from inside the halls.” He turns at the door to his office, looking back at Martin. “Go home, Martin.”

Martin huffs, and storms past Jon on the way out of the hall his office is in, “Fine! I will. You better change your shirt before you leave, or Elias will have something to say about dress code,” he snipes, a little pettily, before turning the corner and leaving. 

* * *

This time, Martin was determined to get it right. He’d stopped at the grocery store—the good one, not his usual corner store shop—to pick up wine. One red, one white, he hadn’t figured out which Jon preferred. He actually has his nicest shirt on, no massive ink stain this time, and a decent pair of jeans. Buying actual nice clothes on an archivist’s assistant budget isn’t easy. 

So, it was going right. Until he gets home and sees a door that wasn’t there when he left, on the wall behind his threadbare couch. He groans and lets the grocery bags slide to the floor. 

It’s still yellow, but a different shade this time. Instead of the bruise colour of before, this door is neon bright, an ache forming in his molars just looking at it. He stares at it for what feels like hours, though. No actual sign of Michael...so far. So he picks the bags back up from the floor and busies himself making everything perfect. Every time he looks over his shoulder he expects to see the door open and Michael grinning down at him. 

Everything’s looking exactly like he wants, not quite like a romantic date, but close enough to say ‘Hey, I fancy you. Maybe.’ He’s decided against putting out candles, for now at least. 

Just as he steps back to admire his setup, there’s a knock at the door. His heart misses a beat as he whips around to look at Michael’s door. Nothing. He moves down the short entrance hall to get the real door, all the while praying that his hands don’t start sweating like a high schooler. His prayers go unanswered. He quickly wipes his hands off on his nice jeans before opening the door to Jon on the other side. 

Jon looks like he just came off work, which is weird because it’s a Sunday. Far be it from Martin to judge Jon for working on a day off, as that’s what convinced him to even come over this time around; a—quickly put together—portfolio of files pertaining to Michael and it’s door. 

“Jon! Glad you could make it, come in!” He stands to the side as Jon murmurs something he assumes to be ‘hello’, before ushering him down the short hall and into the living room. 

Jon looks...tired. The slump of his shoulders says long days and no sleep at the end of them. Martin has to wonder if Michael is giving him trouble, or if it’s nightmares. He wonders what Jon would be like to hold at night, before those thoughts get buried back where they belong. 

“Where’re the files, Martin?” Jon asks, turning to face him once in the living room, barely looking at the lovely but definitely platonic-unless-you’re-down spread of wine and cheese. That stabs at Martin’s heart a little but only a little so it’s fine. He turns to get the files, and Michael’s on his couch. Ah damn. He never even saw the door open. 

Michael waves a little from where he’s lounging like a caged tiger, fingers wavering where the human mask fails to keep their edges softened. The lights flicker and his TV has burst into rounds of wavering static. Martin barely even notices. 

“ _Hello_ , Archivist. I see you’re still looking for me.” It says with a smile, standing from the couch like an unfolding deck chair straight out of a nightmare. Martin feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, looking at that grin too long. Jon pushes past from where Martin had instinctively moved to shield him. 

“What’re you doing here?” Martin says, trying his best to sound demanding. He never thought he would feel short, coming in at six foot even, but Michael easily towers over him. It’s intimidating but also makes him flush under his collar. Damnit. 

Michael flicks his eyes over to him, just a second before its smile gets somehow wider. “I’m here for some hm. _Important_ business.” Michael stalks over to where Jon is standing close, valiantly trying to protect Martin. 

Uncomfortably like a horror movie character, Michael comes close and caresses Jon’s face, gently. Wary of its own sharp edges. It smiles down at him in a way that has Martin going hot all over with one part rage, one part embarrassment at the intimacy. 

“What?” Martin shouts, breaking the staring contest Michael and Jon are stuck in right in front of him. He pushes Jon aside, just trying to get him away from Michael’s grasp, the movement abrupt; a hairline cut splits across his cheek where Michael’s fingers had rested. 

For a second, Martin thinks he’s about to be yelled at, but Jon just looks past him to Michael with a glazed over stare, hand reaching to feel his cheek. 

Michael draws up to his full height—Jesus Christ Martin hadn’t even noticed he had crouched down a little to look at Jon—and says “Jealous?” to Martin. 

Martin wants to break every bone in it’s fucked up body. 

He’s, however, paralyzed when Michael directs his smile back to Jon, and with all the tenderness of a lover—with all the heat of a chemical fire, directs Jon to the toothache of a door behind Martin’s couch.

A snap of the door shutting, and Martin is standing alone; in his nice jeans, surrounded by wine and cheese. 

* * *

Martin gives up trying to fix his TV after three days. The static patterns are loud and oddly mesmerizing, so he ditches it at the side of the road in frustration. Someone else's problem now. It’s fine, eventually he can afford another one. 

What he can’t seem to do is get Jon’s attention without saying “hey I love you.” or something equally embarrassing. He knows it’s not Jon’s fault, the man’s not used to any sort of emotional displays. And Martin hasn’t exactly been straightforward. 

Michael is very, very, straightforward.

Martin’s only consolation is that Michael doesn’t seem to come to the Institute during the day. Which means if Martin’s out of the building before five, he doesn’t tend to see Michael. And that is _fine_ with him.

So to say it’s a surprise when he opens the door to Jon’s office and sees those —unfortunately— familiar blonde curls is an understatement. Surprise is too pleasant of a word, Martin decides. 

Michael looks almost human here; someone, probably him, had dragged the statement chair to Jon’s side of the desk where both Jon and Michael currently sit. 

Sit is a...poor word to describe the drape of Michael over every available surface. He’s not even monster-y he’s just _everywhere_ , his chair, Jon’s desk, Jon’s lap?? Jon looks more annoyed than anything but he doesn’t say or do anything to stop it. What _it_ exactly is, Martin doesn’t know. 

“Oh, hello Martin.” Jon says offhandedly. Michael skewers another piece of...melon? On the edge of it’s sharp finger and feeds it to Jon, who eats it without complaint or looking up. Martin feels like he’s having a fever dream. Maybe he is. Maybe he’s finally gone insane, Michael would just love that wouldn’t it? Michael grins like it _knows_ what he’s thinking. 

Martin hums in response, afraid that any more response will end with him screaming. “One second,” he says, stepping back out of Jon’s office. He whips out his phone and composes a new text to the Archival Assistants group chat. 

_We need to get Michael out of here._

The responses are both very fast and very, well, varied. 

_Ok._ That’s about all he expected from Basira so no surprises there at least. 

_Michael??_ From Tim. Christ. He’s not getting any help from Tim. Tim has probably never had to compete for a date in his entire life, not with those cheekbones. 

_Sorry, who’s Michael?_ From Melanie. Good god, does no one pay attention? He sends off a message back, _Door, long hair, claws, currently cuddling with Jon in his office._

Daisy dislikes his message, both of them, and says nothing else. 

Tim sends another text, just three large winky faces in response to his description. Martin rolls his eyes. None of his coworkers are going to help him, never mind that Michael is a real monster and a real _threat_. Or he would be, if it didn’t seem like all he was after was Jon’s attention. Which still definitely wasn’t happening on his watch. Steeling himself, Martin turns back into Jon’s office.

Michael has migrated from sitting on three separate surfaces to sitting entirely on Jon’s lap, lounging with an air of smug indifference as Jon hands him a file to...shred? 

Martin walks back out of the office without saying anything, and walks straight up three flights of stairs to Elias’ office. 

Elias looks up as he comes storming in —well not storming, he says hello to Rosie. But he refuses to knock! Elias seems unperturbed regardless, and flashes an idle smile.

“Martin, how good to see you. Can I help you with anything?” He even puts down the fountain pen he was holding, to make it really seem like he cared. 

“I uh, yes. You know Michael? Door, claws, hair?” Martin stutters out, watching as Elias’ pleasant smile slowly melts off his face into a carefully blank mask. 

“Yes I’m aware of it. It’s going by Michael these days? Why do you ask, Martin?” 

“Well he’s-it’s here. Down in the Archives. Sitting in Jon’s lap?” The last part is squeaked out as Elias slams his hands down on the desk, properly angry now. 

“I should’ve known something was going on, I’ve been distracted but that’s no excuse. What does it think it’s doing? Hanging around my archivist like a gnat.” Elias’ tirade carries him to the door, talking about what he’ll do when he gets down there.

“I’ll be right back, Martin. Stay here, it shouldn’t take very long to get rid of that _pest_.” He says, and shuts the door with a resounding click, leaving Martin glowing. Hell yeah, everything will be fixed. It takes him only a second longer to realise that Elias’ office door isn’t actually a gaudy shade of safety jacket yellow. 

“Fuck!” one of Elias’ paperweights shatters against the door. It doesn’t change anything, of course. Elias is long gone, and possibly not coming back.

He sends off another quick text to the chat, 

_I got Elias kidnapped._

_Does that mean I can go home?_ From Tim. 

* * *

“Is it in the break room again?”

“Yep.” Tim sighs. 

“Goddamnit.” 

“I know. It was fine at first, kind of funny even, but now this might be getting out of hand.” What Tim was referring to was Michael, who had been lingering around the breakroom for the entire week. It didn’t even _matter_ if Jon was there or not, Michael was here regardless. When Jon _was_ here though, Michael was all over him. It was pretty hard to deal with, even for Melanie. 

And Martin was clearly suffering. The wastebasket under his desk is starting to fill up with the pencils he’s snapped with his white knuckled grip. The mood in the office could be generously described as tense, not least because Elias is in a horrendous mood after vanishing for two weeks without his —ex???— husband noticing. Melanie dreads to see her paycheck at the end of _that_. By the look on Tim’s face, he’s thinking the same thing. 

Tim is right, this is getting out of hand. And Jon, being how he was, isn’t going to do anything about it. So it’s Melanie’s turn. 

Michael is lounging over all of the chairs in the breakroom when she walks in. It doesn’t even have the courtesy of looking up from where it’s inspecting a pile of fruit on a cutting board. It had offered Tim some last week, which he very, very, vehemently refused. Jon’s the only to ever accept any of Michael’s food. Melanie knows it “inspired” Martin to start bringing snacks of his own. She clears her throat to get it’s attention. 

“Can I help you?” It asks in it’s weird lilt. Michael has become something of an unfortunate fixture in the Archives this past week, but it’s voice never fails to raise the hair on the back of her neck. 

“I was just wondering if you could, oh I don’t know, leave.” It raises an eyebrow at her and smiles sharply but doesn’t otherwise have much of a reaction. Its fingers keep methodically slicing through the fruit. It’s almost mesmerizing. 

“No.” It answers lightly. 

“Do you, what, like him?” She demands. Mostly she just wants to know what not one, but _two_ people in her workplace see in Jon. 

It just looks at her and laughs, that awful echoing laugh that makes her head throb. It makes her vision swim for a second before she’s able to focus on it’s stupid, grinning face. If she didn't know better she would ask Elias to get rid of it. 

She does know better though, and it’s what compels her to instead back out of the breakroom into the main bullpen. She reaches her desk, almost bumping into it with the way she refuses to take her eyes off the break room door. 

Martin doesn’t look up from where he’s angrily hunched over a report, which gives Melanie all the leeway she needs to dig through the bottom drawer and pull out her knife. 

She hasn’t needed to use this yet, which is a shame —it’s a beautiful knife, really— but there’s a first time for everything. 

Melanie tucks the knife behind her back, feeling distinctly like a B-rate slasher, as she walks back into the break room. It hasn’t moved, thankfully. Somehow she gets the feeling that if it wanted to, it could move faster than she could blink. 

Michael eyes her again, smiling up from under his spirals of hair. She has to drag her eyes away from the too-blond rivulets. Now is not the time to get distracted. 

“Listen…Michael. I’m sure you’re a really great ah, guy? But you’ve been a real pain in the arse this past week. Could you, you know, pack it up and leave now.” She says, proud of how little she hesitated. Learning on the job, she supposes. Michael’s razor grin gets just a bit sharper. 

“I see no reason to leave. I’m quite comfortable here,” it gestures to the pile of sliced mango it has laid out on the cutting board, “as you can see I keep myself quite busy.” It carefully selects another whole mango laid to the side of the board and begins to slice it. Melanie decides she’s had enough. 

She hears the knife slamming through its hand before she really processes the fact that she moved. She expects it to react but it doesn’t beyond tilting its head slightly to stare at its now pinned down hand. There’s no blood, just the clean separation where the knife enters. Somehow that makes it worse. 

“Hm.” Melanie has to force herself not to look at the hole. _That_ way lies madness. With a grunt, she pulls the knife out from where it’s embedded in the table underneath its hand. There’s a sound of a knife leaving cheap wood, but not the expected sound of a knife leaving flesh. It makes no noise as it leaves Michael’s flesh. 

Michael holds up its hand, still not bleeding, and looks it over. It takes a longer finger and smoothly slides it through the gaping hole and Melanie feels a strong wave of nausea wash over her. It’s so deeply, deeply, wrong to look at. 

“That wasn’t supposed to happen.” It murmurs, eyes still fixated on it’s injured hand with the rest of its face unreadable. 

“Will you leave now?” She says, her hand still white-knuckling the handle of the knife. It doesn’t look at her but she sees it’s face shift slightly. 

“I suppose I’ll have to, hm. Had no idea the Archives had such a… _ferocious_ guard dog.” Michael hums. Its eyes do not leave the hole, even as its own finger does in favor giving a little wave. The air almost wavers around it and she looks away as her head starts to throb. When she looks back, it’s gone, only the cutting board full of fruit showing it wasn’t some wild hallucination. _Finally_. She turns and walks back to the door of the breakroom, leaning on the door jamb and staring into the main bullpen.

“You’re _welcome_ ,” She calls out, impatient and disconcerted with the whole exchange.

Martin is where she left him, furiously hunched over his report, and it takes a second for him to emerge, red eyed and frowning, to blink at her. 

“For what?” 

“For getting rid of your _little_ problem?” She says, and watches as Martin’s eyes go wide behind his glasses in shock.

“Michael is gone?” 

“Yep,” she pops the ‘P’ in a deliberate show of indifference, walking back to and sitting down at her desk, “you’re free to talk to your boyfriend now.” Martin flushes a little at that but doesn’t even attempt to argue. 

“...Thank you.” He says at length, voice a little hoarse. Melanie pretends not to notice. She can sense he needs a _little_ mercy today. 

Martin gets up from his desk, a conscious attempt at being steady. He goes into the kitchen, and upon seeing the fruit on the cutting board, shudders and tosses it in the bin. Board in sink and fruit in trash, he goes about making tea —two cups this time, he’s learned from his mistakes. 

With two mugs in hand, he goes back out. 

“Jon in his office?” He asks Melanie, who in turn barely looks up from the paper she’s scanning. 

“Should be, haven’t seen him leave.” 

Martin walks to Jon’s door, readying himself, taking a deep, steady breath he juggles the mugs to one hand and reaches out to Jon’s door with the other. No steadying breath is capable of suddenly steadying his hand. 

Two knocks on the door with a shaking hand before Martin opens it.

**Author's Note:**

> This is all based off a long joke text post from tumblr user helen-richardson, which can be found [here](https://helen-richardson.tumblr.com/post/189572759224/no-one-besides-jon-even-wants-the-weird-thoroughly)
> 
> We tend to spitball jokes until they form one big thing, but this is the first one we've actually managed to get out inot the world, so we hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
